Mapmaking for Dummies [Mapmaking Thread] [Yes there are spoilers] [lurkers only]

[GermanJoey]

Btw, I don't agree that Zulu have the game in the bag without a reload. I doubt they can hold the city.

I would imagine they would raze it, that city is pretty far from where they are. The free 100 raze gold or whatever would be a huge boon for them, as that will delay somewhat the crisis that will eventually appear with their economy due to their lack of workers. Even then, I still don't think they have the game in the bag; there's other Imp civs, with more workers (remembering that a worker is roughly equal to a city for an Imp civ), and other traits are still considered roughly balanced with Imp.

And, FWIW, I agree that your point about fun is the most important consideration. Usually "fair" will result in "fun" but what is fair between DTG/gsorel won't feel very fair to the 6 players on the other continent.

[MJW (ya that one)]

Don't really have anything new to say but I cannot keep away from rules drama:

gsorel saying "okay" without getting prodded is just too much. If he said "no" I would be okay the game just ending. It doesn't matter what the consequences are: ether DTG has the right to reload or he doesn't.

It would get interesting if there were third parties who would have objected if they knew what was happening or gsorel was prodded but that didn't happen here.

I'm not impressed by Ichabod's argument here because the game being nuked is much bigger than anything that could happen in the future. Things like this can spiral out of control but not if you only cheat a little.

It would not be a concession victory for Zulu because they can still get dogpiled. It would just be "Game Abandoned--Zulu Leading". If everyone else raged-quit then Zulu could declare themselves the winner but there would be plenty of other players here.

[scooter]

I missed gsorel's post where he explicitly approved a reload. In that case, my comments are withdrawn.

edit: Except for the part where I took a dig at the whiny sharks. I stand by those. :P

[GermanJoey]

I missed gsorel's post where he explicitly approved a reload. In that case, my comments are withdrawn.

edit: Except for the part where I took a dig at the whiny sharks. I stand by those. :P

:P :P :P :P :P :P :P :P :P :P :P :P :P :P :P :P :P :P :P :P :P :P :P :P :P :P :P :P :P :P :P :P :P :P :P :P :P :P

[greenline]

([1] and yes, I didn't say anything about the capital closeness or banning the Zulu before the game started either, but that's because greenline had already made 4 revisions of his map because of my complaints and I already felt like a huge asshole criticizing another guy's volunteer work so much when nobody else is saying anything.)

For future reference, please don't feel bad by criticizing any maps I make. The main things I were worried about when making the map was that it would be unbalanced and the players would hate it, or that the long mapmaking process would kill player interest in the game

[greenline]

on a different note:

I'm scratching my head about that city. The only thing I can imagine is that [Elkad]'s grabbing for copper that he couldn't get by settling on the plains hill. But damn, that's hard to defend, even if the lake does afford him some cover. If I were him and screwed that badly on copper, I probably would have just given up the north as a bad job, spammed archers, and landgrabbed south as hard as possible. At least it shields us from NC harassment to some extent.

I'm kind of curious as to why Elkad isn't doing that to. His copper city is difficult to defend as a result of his capital move. Would it be better to just stuff his capital with archers and rely on it as a choke while claiming the entire south? There is a lot of land there, plus iron and horses. Conventional wisdom is to get early copper at all costs, but is it that critical if you're not neighboring Zulu?

[Krill]

Spears are the most effective way to counter chariot rushes, but chariots and archers can work werll enough provided you have an early leader. Spears are also important for dealing with HA, but you need combined arms to really work well in Classical era warfare. I don't think copper is necessary at all costs, but it's not something you should just ignore (cue PB5 and PB27 comments)

[Mardoc]

I don't think you can win an ancient era war without copper. On the other hand, you might be able to make your opponent lose an ancient era war without using copper. Is that good enough?

[Krill]

I disagree. Chariot rushes work. I won the first war in PB5 without metal against azza.

[The Black Sword]

Looks to me like Nyles could interpose the chopping worker in the chariots attack path(his icon is still green). I think that means the chariot couldn't attack again and Pin would need to win 2/2 to take the city, not having odds in the first battle. They don't seem to have spotted the possibility though...